Advisory Case on Handover Obligations and Resignation Procedures

1. The Client's Situation

The client faced a situation in which an employee, ahead of changing jobs in early September, submitted a resignation letter and requested early departure by using up all 17 remaining annual leave days. Accordingly, the actual remaining workdays amounted to only about a week, raising the questions of whether the employee had an obligation to hand over duties, and whether the company could respond legally if the handover was not carried out.

We first reviewed the Labor Standards Act and related labor-relations statutes and confirmed that there is no statutory provision directly stipulating an obligation to hand over duties. A worker need only submit a resignation letter and fulfill the duty to work until the scheduled date of departure, and the company cannot compel a handover beyond this. However, where the employment contract or rules of employment contain a separate handover clause, liability for nonperformance of obligations under the Civil Act may arise; we confirmed that the employment contract in this matter contained no such provision.

Accordingly, we drew the conclusion that the employee had no legal obligation to hand over duties, and that it would likewise be difficult for the company to extend the date of departure or to hold the employee liable for damages. The client was able to organize an internal policy to have only a realistic, short-term handover carried out while preventing unnecessary legal disputes.